


Relief Rider

by glorious_spoon



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:26:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28528440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: There's a dragon in need of a rider, and like it or not, Peggy is the last unbonded rider at the Weir.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 36
Collections: fandomtrees





	Relief Rider

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



> So this is technically a Dragonriders of Pern fusion, but it's been like twenty years since I've read the books, so I've taken a lot of liberty with the details of how dragonriding works, and you shouldn't need to have read that to get this. Dragons and riders have psychic bonds; they fight the malevolent but mindless Thread, which devours everything in its path as it falls, that's about all you need to know!
> 
> Also fulfills the 'Wings' square on my 2020 Hurt/Comfort Bingo card.

Peggy was halfway through her second bitter mug of klah for the day when Dooley stuck his head into the dining hall and barked, “Carter!”

Angie gave her a wide-eyed look across the table, and Peggy tried to _shush_ her without opening her mouth before lifting her head. Dooley looked out-of-sorts and tired in scorched leathers, sweaty hair uncharacteristically disheveled from his helmet, which was still tucked under his arm.

She shoved back her seat and stood, sketching a salute that did nothing more than make him scowl. “Sir?”

He eyed her with a look of distaste that she was accustomed to, but there was also an assessing air to his gaze that was new. Finally, he heaved a sigh.

“Gear up,” he said finally.

Peggy blinked. “Sir?”

“Something wrong with your ears, Carter? Krzeminski’s down, and there’s Threadfall due in three marks. His Setoth is already saddled, and we need a full wing. Can you handle it?”

Peggy snapped to at that. “Yes, sir. Krzeminski—that is, will he be—”

“He’ll probably live,” Dooley said. “Not your problem right now. Can you handle it, or can’t you?”

Now was not the moment to point out that she’d been a relief rider on the front for three turns, that she’d watched friends and fellow riders fall under Thread, that she bore the scars of it herself. The ravages were manageable these days, and the services of unpaired riders like Peggy were no longer needed, or so she’d been repeatedly informed.

Really, no one liked to be reminded of the possibility of outliving their dragon. Like Daniel with his wooden leg, Peggy was a reminder of _there but for the grace of God._

“Of course, sir,” she said crisply. “Let me get my gear.”

Dooley grunted, then turned on his heel to leave. Peggy shared a single wide-eyed look with Angie, then downed the last of her klah in a single bitter gulp and all but scrambled for her rooms.

* * *

Her leathers were all in mint riding condition, which was to say, well-oiled, but viciously scarred. She’d seen some new riders with fresh, lavishly decorated gear gifted to them by well-meaning family and friends, and these days it sometimes even stayed that way, but Peggy’s gear, though it was as supple as when it was new, looked as though it had been lashed with a white-hot whip. There was a scar that leapt across the elbow joint of one arm; the missing part was a permanent puckered welt on the inside of her arm, where the Thread had slipped through the joint and started to eat through her skin before she’d managed to shake it off, screaming. She’d stayed in the air for six hours after, and had barely been able to use that arm for weeks following.

In the moment, though, she didn’t allow herself to linger on that. The muscle memory was useful for getting into her gear with military efficiency, and she was down in the sands before most of the other riders.

 _Most_ of them. Daniel was already mounted, his bad leg strapped into the saddle while his dragon, a sweet-natured brown, twisted back to nose at him. He lifted a gloved hand to her before pulling his goggles down, and Peggy waved back.

“Oh for the love of—really, Dooley couldn’t come up with anyone else?” Ah, and there was Jack, strapping on his riding leathers while his skittish green lady flexed her wings under the arching ceiling.

“If you’ve a better candidate, feel free to name them,” Peggy retorted.

“Name _him_ , you mean.”

“Have you, then?”

“This is a terrible idea,” Jack said, which was answer enough. That was fine. She’d always worked well with him on the wing, and that was all that mattered now. She could always strangle him once they were back on the ground. “When’s the last time you were even up in the air, Carter?”

“I’m sorry, I thought that Roger Dooley was the leader of this wing,” Peggy said. “Or have you suddenly become a bronze rider when I wasn’t looking?”

It was a low blow, and she could see it in the way Jack’s face twisted before he turned back toward Sheth, who arched her long neck down to butt at him. Peggy refused to feel bad about it. Jack Thompson’s touchy ego was not her problem right now.

The agitated blue dragon prancing at the far side of the cavern was. Setoth was small for a blue, built for speed rather than power, which had always struck Peggy as an odd match for the jocularly overbearing Krzeminski, but the bond was evidently true. She winced, hoping with real fervency for the first time that he'd pull through.

Peggy could ride, after all. But bonding with a dragon was another story. A bond broken by the death of half the pair would never properly heal—all that could be hoped for was a heavy callus to shield the hurt.

And that was precisely the sort of self-pitying morbid rumination that she didn’t need right now. She wouldn’t think of Kaleth falling from the sky, the bleak silence where before there had been a warm presence in her mind. About her own unlikely rescue from the water and the mindless incoherent weeks that followed.

She shook her head sharply, glad that Thompson was already occupied with strapping himself into the harness and thus not able to witness her falter, and approached Krzeminski’s riderless blue.

 _:All right, that’s quite enough of that:_ she sent sharply, cutting across the snarled tangle of fear and fury like a knife blade.

It was harsh, entirely too harsh, a jagged blade on an already wounded mind. Only a rider could have done it; no paired rider would have dared.

And Peggy, the last of the orphaned pairs left here at the Weir—one of the few left at all who was anything approaching sane—she planted her feet on the sand, her fingers digging into the leather of her helmet as the furious blue dragon mantled like a bird of prey—and then subsided.

 _:There we are:_ Peggy sent, sliding her helmet on as she approached. Setoth mantled again, restlessly, then ducked his head down, watching her with a wary golden eye as she approached. _:Your bondmate will heal:_ she sent more gently, hoping very much that it was true. _:For now we have work to do.:_


End file.
